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Dave Duncan's Boys


Migrant Redbird

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Now that Shelley Duncan has burst upon the scene for the Yankees with 3 home runs in his first 12 major league at bats, perhaps it's time to bring up again the topic of where his younger brother, Chris, should be playing.

A continuing debate since Chris Duncan burst upon the scene last summer has been the advisability of dealing him to an American League team in need of a solid DH, rather than keeping him in left field on the Cards and trusting that he'll be a Manny Ramirez type -- winning more games with his bat than he loses with his glove.

I recall last winter drawing a lot of guffaws when I pointed out that Chris's half season as a rookie was eerily similar to that of NL MVP Ryan Howard's rookie season the year before. Well, almost 2/3 of the way through the season, here's how Dave Duncan's "little boy" ranks compared to the DH position in the American League.

DH/PLAYER  GP  AB  R  H  2B 3B HR  TB RBI   BA  OBP  SLG  OPSPujols     94 342 59 109 19  0 21 191  59 .319 .421 .558 .979*Boston    88 331 59 104 33  0 15 182  58 .314 .423 .550 .973C. Duncan  80 260 44  77 15  0 19 149  55 .296 .387 .573 .960*Tigers    86 334 81  97 17  1 24 188  59 .290 .391 .563 .954*Indians   88 322 51  86 13  2 16 151  62 .267 .401 .469 .870White Sox  87 301 47  77 13  0 17 141  54 .256 .399 .468 .867Rangers    88 337 49  89 19  2 19 169  67 .264 .330 .501 .831Athletics  88 321 46  83 18  1 13 142  54 .259 .357 .442 .800Yankees    88 337 53  87 15  0 15 147  55 .258 .360 .436 .797Blue Jays  88 314 39  78 14  0 14 134  46 .248 .363 .427 .789AL Average 87 327 47  86 17  1 13 142  49 .262 .351 .436 .787Royals     87 330 37  87 20  1  8 133  55 .264 .320 .403 .723*Mariners  85 344 48 100 13  1  4 127  28 .291 .348 .369 .717Orioles    88 324 35  76 20  1 10 128  37 .235 .296 .395 .691Twins      88 319 30  80 19  2  3 112  37 .251 .329 .351 .680D-Rays     88 324 39  73 13  0 10 116  32 .225 .314 .358 .672*Angels    87 336 40  84 16  0  8 124  41 .250 .285 .369 .654

* Division leaders and wild card contenders

It's unfortunate that Tony La Russa insists upon leaving Chris out of the lineup most of the time the Cardinals face a left handed starter, just as he used to do with JD Drew his first couple of seasons. If the guy is good enough to be a major leaguer regular, then play him every day and make him learn to hit southpaws well enough that he can be an everyday player!

I've long been an advocate for moving Chris to an American League team because I believe that he potentially has "Big Papi" type value in the junior circuit, while we will always have mixed feelings about playing him in left field in St. Louis. Also, for the first time in many years, the Cards have a bunch of promising young outfield candidates in the higher levels of the minors and far too many of them are left handers. We can afford to deal Chris Duncan, but only if we get very good starting pitcher prospects (or "major league ready") starters in exchange. Otherwise, we should simply keep Chris and try to look the other way any time our opponents hit a ball to left field.

I'm not arguing too hard for moving Chris before the deadline because the teams in the chase who need a DH probably can't afford to give up starting pitching to get him -- and also because I don't believe the current regime will consider trading him as long as Pappy Dave remains the Cardinals pitching coach. I think there's a much better chance of finding a good trading partner over the winter, by which time hopefully Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan will be gone. Rumors are flying that Walt Jocketty is very unhappy too and might want to go after the GM job in Cincinnati, even though he still has a year to run on his contract in St. Louis.

[Edit: Just to add a talking point, here's Chris's totals for his first 550 major league at bats: 106 runs, 27 doubles, 3 triples, 42 home runs, 101 RBIs, 2 steals in 3 attempts, 68 walks, 148 strikeouts, only 2 intentional walks and 9 GIDPs. Also, 8 errors and a .972 fielding percentage.]

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I was just comparing the height (6' 5") and the weight (215 for Shelley and 210 for Chris) when I noticed the following at Shelley's page on Baseball-Reference.

Sponsor this newly available (please read) page for $180 and help Baseball-Reference.com provide this service.

Wow! Tony La Russa's page isn't sponsored and is available for only $75. Paul Bako's page is available for just $15 and the page of Cardinals rookie Ryan Ludwick can be sponsored for a mere $10! I knew that Baseball-Reference had a sliding scale and the lowest fee that I've been able to find is $5.

I suppose that Baseball-Reference is counting on some Yankees fan or commercial sponsor to want to hop on the rookie's bandwagon while he's still hot. Reading Baseball-Reference's policy, I found this statement.

[Newly established] pages will be started at $100 and then drop $10/day until they reach $10. Some highly desirable pages may be set at a higher initial value at BR's discretion.

I also happened to notice that the 2007 Yankees page is available for sponsorship at $290. I wonder what Baseball-Reference's policy would be about fans of a rival team sponsoring it; kind of a reverse form of the "Take Back The Yard" nights. The 2006 team page is sponsored by a commercial organization, but the 2005 Yankees team page is available for just $65. The 2004 team page is sponsored by a portable swimming pools company.

Of course, there are a lot of Orioles and Cardinals pages -- both teams and players -- available for much, much less.

On a sadder note, while checking to see if the pages of some lesser known Cardinals players were sponsored, I noticed that Mike Coolbaugh was a member of the 2002 Cardinals team. For the time being, it appears that Baseball-Reference has pulled Coolbaugh's page off the market. I assume that it will become available again for sponsorship after a decent interval has passed. Out of curiosity, I checked Daryl Kile's and Josh Hancock's pages; both are sponsored, Kile by "A Cardinal Fan" with a very simple message, "We miss you." and Hancock by "ElmsLadies" with a message that undoubtedly presaged his untimely accident, "Enjoy your ring, Josh. As the bullpen work-horse of the 2006 World Champions, you deserve it!"

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